Letters

Academics are not immigration officials

The new immigration rules for overseas students to be introduced in March 2009 by the Border Agency are very worrying (New points system, November 5). These rules would require universities to report any absences by overseas students from lectures, seminars or tutorials, or any failure to submit any assessment on time. In other words, the university is being asked to act as an immigration officer and set up a surveillance unit over these students. This goes far beyond the present monitoring of student progress systems in universities, which has as its basic purpose assisting students to reach their full potential.In our view it is hard to justify such detailed monitoring of overseas students, even for immigration control purposes. Surely the Border Agency just needs to know students have registered and are at the university? It does not need to have this constant monitoring. This police-like surveillance is not the function of universities, and alters the educational relationship between students and their teachers in a very harmful manner. University staff are there to help the students develop intellectually and not to be a means of sanctioning these students. The proposals are discriminatory as they apply only to overseas students and not EU students. They represent a possible breach of article 8 (right to a private life) and article 3 (degrading treatment) of the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998. We would urge universities, MPs and others to join us in opposing these rules and calling for the government to withdraw them.Ian Grigg-Spall Academic chair, National Critical Lawyers Group Sally Hunt University and College Union Tony BennProfessor Bill Bowring Birkbeck School of Law, London University Liz Davies Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers